The following is the transcript of an interview with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Aug. 24, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face The Nation.’ It’s quiet here in Washington as we come on the air this morning, but the debate is heating up over President Trump’s calling up of nearly 2300 National Guardsmen, along with federal agents from ICE, the ATF, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, and others, to patrol the streets of the city alongside DC police forces. And we’re seeing yet another instance of Trump’s expanding of the federal government’s reach, this time when it comes to control of police in local communities. Will we see pictures like these in other U.S. cities in the future? Well, one of the places President Trump has mentioned is needing help fighting crime is nearby Baltimore, and joining us right now is Maryland’s Democratic Governor Wes Moore. Thank you for being here.
GOV. WES MOORE: Thank you so much for having me.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So they’re here in DC- there are guardsmen from six different states on the street. The mission is, quote, ‘beautification, duty and support.’ The defense secretary has author- authorized them to carry M4 and M17 rifles, but to date, we have not been able to locate anyone armed within the National Guard on the streets of DC. Why, though, are you so opposed to this deployment?
GOV. MOORE: Well, there’s- there’s plenty of reasons. You know one, it is not sustainable. You cannot continue this type of pace of operations, particularly when you’re when it’s costing over a million dollars a day in order to do this. The second, it’s not scalable. You’re not going to be able to do this in every single major American city, particularly when many of the cities that have the highest crime rates are the places that have actually deployed their national guards to Washington, DC. So who’s going to- who’s going to go do the work in their cities? The third, it’s unconstitutional. It’s a direct violation of the 10th Amendment, and for a party that talks about state rights, it’s amazing how they’re having such a big government approach in the way they’re conducting public safety. The fourth reason is because it’s deeply disrespectful to the members of the National Guard. As someone who actually deployed overseas and served my country in combat, to ask these men and women to do a job that they’re not trained for is just deeply disrespectful. And so when we’re thinking about all of these lasting factors, when we’re thinking about the fact that it serves as a distraction from the fact that the President’s disastrous economic policies are making everything more expensive for everyday Americans- is making life harder for everyday Americans, there is a multitude of reasons that I am against this, and I will not authorize the Maryland National Guard to be utilized for this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the National Guard does say that these troops will be trained and deputized by Federal Marshals. So this is going to be distinct from the military rules of engagement
GOV. MOORE: But it is counter to every bit of training that we received. When- when I joined the military, we joined with a clear intention to fight and win our nation’s wars. The members of our National Guard are trained up to be able to address things like emergency situations, situations where you need- where you need a surge of supports for- for traumas and disasters that are happening within individual jurisdictions. That is not this, and this is a direct deflection that the President is authorizing.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We know the President watches the program, and he likely saw the guest listing because he’s tweeting about you- or truthing, I guess. He says the Governor Wes Moore of Maryland has asked in a ‘nasty and provocative tone that I walk the streets of Maryland with him,’ and he’s talking about ‘crime ridden Baltimore.’ It’s quite lengthy, but he goes after your record on crime. He says it’s a ‘bad one.’ He says, if you need help, he will send in the troops, which is being done in nearby DC. I mean, when we saw a few weeks ago the deployment on the streets of Los Angeles, the governor of California tried to go to the courts, and he was unable to stop it. Is the reality here is- you can’t stop the president from sending troops to Baltimore if he wants to?
GOV. MOORE: The year before I became the governor, in 2022, Baltimore was averaging almost a homicide a day, and I came in and I said, I refuse to be a governor who just offers thoughts and prayers to this situation. So we said we’re actually going to work in partnership with Mayor Scott, work in partnership with local elected officials, work in partnership with local- with local law enforcement. We made the largest investments in local law enforcement in our state’s history. Over $50 million going to Baltimore City alone–
MARGARET BRENNAN: That came from federal money.
GOV. MOORE: No that came from both federal and state money, and also Maryland became one of the only states that actually helps to fund the U.S. Attorney out of balance sheet, taking many of those gun crimes and actually turning them into federal charges. And the results have been- have been incredibly encouraging, where Maryland’s had amongst the fastest drops in violent crime of anywhere in the United States in the past two and a half years. The homicide rate in Maryland is down over 20% since I have been the governor, and the last time the homicide rate was this low in Baltimore City, I was not born yet. And so the reason that I’ve asked the President to come and join us is because he seems to enjoy living in this blissful ignorance. This- these tropes, in these 1980s scare- scare tactics. And you know, just last week I was in Baltimore, and I was with a group called ‘We Our Us’ who is a violence intervention group. And they say we’re all we got, we’re all we need. And that’s exactly how people in this community feel. Because while the President is spending his time from the Oval Office making jabs and attacks at us, there are people actually on the ground doing the work who know what supports would actually work to continue to bring down crime, but it’s falling on deaf ears of the President of the United States.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re talking about the positive trend line. The President’s pointing to the FBI statistics, which shows Baltimore is the fifth most instances of violent crime on a per capita basis. Fourth highest murder rate. To your point, the city of Memphis is also on that list, and the Governor of Tennessee sent those National Guard troops here to this city, not to the streets of Memphis–
GOV. MOORE: –And we know we have work to do. We know- if one person does not feel safe in their neighborhood, that’s one too many. But we also know what tactics actually work and what tactics is just theatrics.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But your- the mayor in Baltimore did just say he wants federal help– he doesn’t want National Guard troops, per se, though, he says he wants agents from FBI, DEA and ATF, do you need more federal help in policing if your mayor thinks you do?
GOV. MOORE: Oh, absolutely. And we need the President to stop cutting funding. Because if you look at the President’s budget, it actually cuts funding towards violence intervention groups. It cuts funding towards the bureaus of the FBI and the ATF that are supporting local jurisdictions like Baltimore. That it doesn’t do anything about things like ghost guns and these extended Glock clips that allow these Glocks to essentially turn into automatic weapons. Those are actually real, tangible things that the President of the United States could do and where you could put capital to actually make our communities safer.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you are a Democrat who is- President Trump says so as well, possibly a presidential candidate. He talked about you the other day.
GOV. MOORE: Yeah.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He spent a lot of time talking about you.
GOV. MOORE: I’ve been on his mind a lot of times.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re spending time talking about crime. Is this something that, as a Democrat, you think the Democratic Party needs to be more vocal and muscular about when running for office? Because I hear you doing that. It’s a very big change from 2020 when the you know idea was defund the police.
GOV. MOORE: Absolutely. And yet the President spending all of his time talking about me. I’m spending my time talking about the people I serve. And yes, I believe that we have to be able to address the issue of crime. I came up in, and I have existed in neighborhoods and communities that have been chronically neglected. And I remember one of the first things that happened in our first months in, I had to visit Shock Trauma inside of Baltimore, because Baltimore had one of the largest mass shootings in its history. And I visited a young man, a teenager, who was just finished surgery and had one of his testicles shot off, and was talking about, how was he ever going to become a father? And I said, at that point, I refuse to continue doing this and not putting the proper resources in place, and not being able to put a real focus on making our communities safer. And that’s why it is so frustrating when we’re hearing from the President of the United States something that is just purely performative, without actually focusing on these communities and these neighborhoods who believe that progress is possible and who are willing to put in the work and we’re just simply asking for Washington to be able to acknowledge it and support it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He says you’re not ‘presidential timber’ at all. I imagine you disagree with that assessment?
GOV. MOORE: Yeah, I’ve been very clear. I’m not running for president–
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right now.
GOV. MOORE: But it’s interesting that- but it’s interesting the President seems to be more concerned about my future than he is about the future of the American people, and that’s why I’m asking him to keep his focus. Focus on the things that actually matter right now, which is the fact that his economic policies are driving up prices on everything from electronics, to the clothes that we wear, to the food that we eat. Talk about the fact that he has immigration policies that are knocking out tens of thousands of jobs in the state of Maryland. Talk about the fact that you are about to kick veterans and seniors off of health care. Don’t worry about my future. Worry about theirs.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you, you brought up immigration one of the residents of your state, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was just released from pretrial detention on Friday. But the Trump administration has instructed him to report to ICE within 72 hours for deportation to Uganda. He’s originally from El Salvador. He was mistakenly deported to that prison in El Salvador and then returned to the U.S. This is federal policy. This is not state policy. But I do wonder, is there anything that you are doing to help his family stay united?
GOV. MOORE: And the- what we know is that- you know, and all we’re asking for, is that the constitution be followed on this. The constitution is very clear about how we deal with these types of issues, and when we look at what’s happened in this situation, it’s the President manipulating the fact that we have a very broken immigration system inside this country. But instead of actually doing the work that it requires to fix it, actually working in Congress to come up with a comprehensive immigration bill, the President is using to just- working to exploit the brokenness. And I am very clear that there is no higher priority for me than public safety–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You want him to face a day in court, in other words.
GOV. MOORE: Absolutely. I want due process. I just simply want a court and a judge to decide what is going to be the future fate of this case and all cases like this, and not simply the President of the United States or the Secretary of Homeland Security who is trying to be judge, Juror, prosecutor and executioner inside this case. I believe in the Constitution, and I believe that that’s what we should follow for this case.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about something your party is tinkering with here, redistricting or gerrymandering, as some people know it. You’ve said you don’t like talking about it, but all options are on the table when it comes to your state. There’s only one- one seat here that is actually Republican, and it’s a seat held by Representative Andy Harris. Are you considering trying to redraw lines in Maryland?
GOV. MOORE: Yeah. When I say all options are on the table, all options are on the table.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Are you actively looking at it now?
GOV. MOORE: Yeah because and I think- and I think we have to–
MARGARET BRENNAN: You are?
GOV. MOORE: Yes, and I think- and I think we have to, because I think what’s happened is this is what people hate about politics in the first place, the fact that the President of the United States very similar to what he did in Georgia, where he called up a series of voter registrants and said, I need you to find me more votes. We’re watching the same thing now, where he’s calling up legislatures around the country and saying, I need you to find me more congressional districts.
MARGARET BRENNAN: He’s doing it. That may be different, but Democrats redistrict you know this, Gavin Newsom is doing it right now. A few years ago in New York, we saw this. This can backfire. Do you really want to go down this road?
GOV. MOORE: I want to make sure that we have fair lines and fair seats, where we don’t have situations where- where politicians are choosing voters, but that voters actually have a chance to choose their elected officials. We need to be able to have fair maps. And we also need to make sure that if the President of the United States is putting his finger on the scale to try to manipulate elections, because he knows that his policies cannot win in a ballot box, then it behooves each and every one of us to be able to keep all options on the table to ensure that the voters voices can actually be heard, and we can have maps.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you don’t think that one district where they represent- they have a Republican representative that they are actively being represented in Maryland?
GOV. MOORE: I think if you look at maps across the country, less than 10% of congressional seats are actually competitive by nature. Less than 10%. And so if you look at the average win margin in our state and so many states, the average win margin is upwards of 20 to 30% so that means we already have so many gerrymandered areas that we have to be able to add a measure of fairness in the way that it’s applied. And so yes, all options need to be on the table in the state of Maryland.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you’re looking at it, you said.
GOV. MOORE: Yes we are.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Governor, thank you for your time this morning.
GOV. MOORE: Thank you so much.
MARGARET BRENNAN: ‘Face the Nation’ will be back in a minute. Stay with us.
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